The field of the present invention is fish-canning machines and particularly turret type solid pack machines.
Turret type solid pack fish canning equipment has long been available for the canning of substantially whole pieces of fish such as tuna. Reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 2,542,133, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. More recently, such devices have included double turret arrangements to increase the speed and quality of pack per machine. Such a machine is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,116,600, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. Such double turret machines are widely used around the world for the canning of tuna in a solid pack.
The world market for canned solid pack fish has grown more divergent in terms of pack characteristics. A wide variety of can sizes is now common and the density of the pack for particular markets also varies. Meeting the demands of the commercial market today requires the frequent reconfiguration of equipment to accommodate the various pack requirements.
Characteristic of solid pack fish canning equipment is its close tolerances around the cutting blades and at part lines across which the product is transported during the packing operation. These mechanical requirements are necessary to keep fragmentation of solid pieces and a loss of product from the pack to a minimum. With such stringent mechanical requirements, adjustments to the equipment to accommodate changes in the desired pack have been difficult. Further, the effective thickness of the turret defines the size of the cake; and, for certain changes, the turrets must be taken out and replaced. Such a task is time consuming and requires substantial skill to insure that proper tolerances were again achieved. As greater variety in pack characteristics has become a commercial reality, the inability to rapidly adjust the equipment to meet such demands has been disadvantageous.